Should you have body aesthetics as your primary goal when embarking on a fitness routine?
Yes and No
Yes because it can help you to make smart (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant & time-bound ) goals.
No because if you only keep a distant figure of body shape, weight, fat percentage or inch loss and you keep measuring your self every now and then it can be very troublesome for your mind and can make you unhappy when you don’t see much changes in those figures sometimes for weeks. Achieving a fitness goal is a curvey line and one needs to navigate through all the tight curves with patience and commitment.
What are the dangers and harmful impact of having body aesthetics as your primary goals?
If you keep your body aesthetics as your primary goal you will not enjoy the actual progress that you are making in your fitness journey. Body aesthetics should come as a side effect of months and years of dedicated progressive training and a healthy lifestyle.
Just focusing on a specific body part or size zero figure can be really unhealthy for a human being. Eating too less and working out too much both have a negative impact on overall health and well being. One can have hormonal imbalances, muscle and bone loss, loss of sleep and higher levels of anxiety that can eventually lead to mild to severe depression.
You can tone and strengthen specific muscle groups by isolation training but you can’t remove fat from specific locations like butt or waist... it’s a general perception when it comes to fat loss... if you do more crunches you will burn belly fat... it just does not work like that... Crunches will tone up your abdomen muscles but to burn fat you need to work holistically on overall strength, cardiovascular training and healthy eating.
What is a good approach for goal setting that ensures you can get to desired shape and still be healthy, both mind and body?
Embark your journey with small measurable goals which can be in form of distance travelled in specific time like 1mile run test, plank time test, push-up test or 1 RM squat test. These all tests challenge your physical and mental strength. You can use them as a tool & re-test after 6-8 weeks to check your progress and plan specific training regimens. Make a goal and work towards it in a progressive and healthy manner but don’t loose your momentum if you hit a plateau for a while. It’s normal and most of the fitness journeys have few spots when it becomes hard to progress and you need to pull back a little, remodel your perspective, methods and sometimes even goals.
Gagan Arora
Lifestyle Coach & Celebrity Trainer.
Founder Kosmic Fitness
Garmin Running Coach, India
Revo2lution Running Master Coach
Bosu International Master Trainer
Master Functional Trainer
Ironman Certified Coach
ACSM Personal Trainer
Reebok Certified Group Fitness
Reebok Marathon Trainer
Barefoot Training Specialist
Animal Flow Instructor (Global Bodyweight Training)
REHAB Trainer